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Spellbound by the Himalayas!

I have travelled the length and breadth of our country, covering all the states by road. If I count the kilometres I have travelled since 2001, it will definitely be in excess of 10 lakh! A vast majority of the photographs I have taken have been clicked from the front passenger seat, mostly when the car is in motion. Thanks to such circumstances, I was able to develop techniques to shoot from a moving vehicle. Initially, I used to think that I was going to a particular destination and the journey ends when I reached there. Actually, the journey ends where I started from: yes, what I mean is that my journey starts and ends at home. Yours too.

Tsokar Lake; Photo: Suresh Narayanan

Photo: Suresh Narayanan

Pangyong Tso; Photo: Suresh Narayanan

The play between sunlight and clouds helps define the folds and lines in a mountain range, revealing the majesty of the Himalayas; Photo: Suresh Narayanan

This year, it rained like anything in Maharashtra… as a result the reservoirs even in the draught affected areas of the state are now full to the brim. The prayer of the farmers has been heard! The extended monsoon also created craters on our regular roads transforming them into Himalayan roads! Curiously, during the monsoons, I am usually in the Himalayas and there (especially in the higher altitudes) people pray for sunny day when they need water – directly or diagonally opposite to the prayers of the people in the plains! Why? Well, in the higher altitudes, rain is scarce, but a warm sunny spell melts the snow and voila – there is water!

When you are standing by the ocean, considering the depth of it, you are already more than half the way to Mount Everest. It is a different level of high on the heights. Now I am back home and have convinced myself to walk too – walk on the mountains.

In this first post, I am aiming to show you glimpses of the mighty Himalayas, and the different forms of water play props in my frames. Be it clouds or snow or water, the magic is right in front of me. The breath-taking views of the Himalayas cannot be recorded in a single frame if one has to do justice to the magnificence of the Himalayas. Across the years, it has occurred to me several times that even the top-of-the line cameras in my hand are sometimes inadequate in front of the majestic mountains around me. I have to frame some portion of the drama played around to justify being a photographer. The shadow of a piece of cloud can define the folds of the mountain, which otherwise looks flat. And, to add to the drama, there are things jumping and running around and then something is blooming and there are things crawling around and then there are people like us – it’s all life unfolding in these mountains! When I went to Ladakh for the first time in 2005, I was spellbound and tried framing everything on my way. I was like a puppy on the beach, as the height increases the trees start disappearing, only bushes to be seen. Then bushes too disappeared, only grass left. Then that too disappeared… Lunar landscape! Eventually, I started calling it ‘lunatic landscape’ because it changes its colour, structure, texture and form as rapidly as the time of the day, not to mention the seasons!

In the future, I am unlikely to bother you with long posts like this one because my medium of expression is visuals. That means I will show you what I want to say through my photos. And I will appreciate your feedback especially what you did not like about my posts, so do write in whenever you can!